Board of Educ. of Montgomery County v. Montgomery County Educ. Ass'n, Inc.

• Decision Date: 01 September 1985
• Docket Number: No. 883,883
• Parties: , 123 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2505, 31 Ed. Law Rep. 124 BOARD OF EDUCATION OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY v. MONTGOMERY COUNTY EDUCATION ASSOCIATION, INC. ,
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

Page 729

66 Md.App. 729

505 A.2d 905, 123 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2505,

31 Ed. Law Rep. 124

BOARD OF EDUCATION OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY v. MONTGOMERY COUNTY EDUCATION ASSOCIATION, INC.

No. 883, Sept. Term, 1985.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

March 12, 1986.

Roger W. Titus (Titus & Glasgow, on brief), Rockville, for appellant.

James R. Whattam (Walter S. Levin and Weinberg and Green, on brief), Baltimore, for appellee.

Argued before GILBERT, C.J., and WILNER and ADKINS, JJ.

WILNER, Judge.

We have before us in these cross-appeals a dispute between the Montgomery County Board of Education (County Board) and the Montgomery County Education Association (MCEA), acting as the designated exclusive representative for teachers and certain other professional personnel employed by the County Board. At issue is whether the County Board is required by Md.Code Ann.Educ. art., § 6-408(b) to negotiate with MCEA with respect to (1) the school calendar ¹ and (2) the reclassification of employees represented by MCEA.

I. Background

The parties were operating under a collective bargaining agreement that was due to expire June 30, 1984. In the preliminary stage of negotiating a successor agreement, MCEA submitted an initial bargaining proposal that included the two items noted above, as follows:

                "ARTICLE
                 SECTION            CONCEPT             RATIONALE
                --------  ----------------------------  -----------------------------
                6.New(4)  Calendar (including summer    Negotiate fundamental
                          school) to follow.            working conditions
                13.G.     No reclassification without   Protect unit members'
                          negotiation.                  salary. Eliminates penalties
                                                        for unit members
                          Grandfather class of current
                          employees and reclassify
                          new employees."
                

Relying on a 1970 ruling of the State Board of Education (State Board) to the effect that the school calendar and the classification of jobs were matters within the sole prerogative of the local school board, the County Board declined to negotiate those two matters. MCEA thereupon filed with the State Board a "Charge of Unfair Labor Practice," complaining about the County Board's position and asking the State Board to overrule its 1970 decision and order the County Board to negotiate on those items. The "charge" was filed with the State Board pursuant to Educ. art., § 2-205(e), which provides:

"(1) Without charge and with the advice of the Attorney General, the State Board shall explain the true intent and meaning of the provisions of:

(i) This article that are within its jurisdiction; and

(ii) The bylaws, rules, and regulations adopted by the Board.

(2) The Board shall decide all controversies and disputes under these provisions.

(3) The decision of the Board is final."

The State Board referred the matter to a hearing examiner, who conducted an evidentiary hearing. At the outset of the hearing, both sides seemed to agree that the issues before the State Board were not purely legal ones but also involved questions of educational policy.

On the issue of the school calendar, the MCEA witness, Walter Rogowski, claimed that teachers had been impacted "quite severely" by the school calendar, which led MCEA to regard the calendar as "a very, very important working condition and a priority in our bargaining." The severe impact, he explained, arose from the facts that (1) in the 1982-83 school year, the teachers lost a day that had historically been provided for them to attend the Maryland State Teachers Association convention, (2) the last day of that school year happened to be a Monday, which deprived teachers of a long weekend, and (3) the first day of the 1983-84 school year was a Friday, which deprived them of another long weekend.

County Board officials Robert Cooney and Stephen Rohr responded that the school calendar affects many groups other than teachers, among them parents, students, and other employees of the County Board, many of whom were paid by the hour or day. The County Board agreed to negotiate the number of days above the State law minimum that school would be open, but felt that the setting of the actual calendar was a County Board prerogative. If the calendar were mandatorily negotiable, they added, the County Board would have to negotiate it not only with MCEA but also with two other unions--the MCCSSE, which represents some 5,600 classified employees (bus drivers, cafeteria workers, etc.) and MCCASP, which represents about 400 central office administrators, principals, and vice-principals.

Upon this evidence, the hearing examiner recommended no change in the State Board's 1970 ruling that county boards were not required to negotiate the school calendar. She acknowledged two contrary decisions in other States based on the notion that the school calendar is related to hours and conditions of employment (City of Beloit, Etc. v Wis. Employment, Etc., 73 Wis.2d 43, 242 N.W.2d 231 (1976)) or that the teachers' substantial interest in planning their summer activities outweighs any claim of interference with the county board's right to manage the school district (Westwood Community Schools, 1972 MERC Lab.Op. 313, Mich.Empl.Rel.Comm.), but simply found the reasoning behind those decisions unacceptable. The State Board, upon further review, adopted that recommendation, and, on MCEA's appeal, the Circuit Court for Montgomery County affirmed. The issue is before us on MCEA's cross-appeal.

The classification issue is a bit more complex. Apparently, all positions in the county school system are classified, but there is more than one classification system. Teachers have one classification system; it consists of five classifications, each of which contains 10 or more grade steps through which teachers advance by reason of length of service. Each classification is based on the college degree and number of acceptable post-graduate credits possessed by the teacher. A teacher with a baccalaureate degree and 15 post-graduate credits, for example, falls within Classification B; if and when the teacher receives a master's degree or its equivalent, he or she will move into Classification C.

The teachers' system is not the principal one at issue here. The County Board does negotiate the classifications themselves, the grade steps within each, and the salaries for each classification and grade step, so the basic framework of the system is the subject of collective bargaining. Moreover, because the classifications are based on objective standards of academic achievement and the grade steps are based on length of service, there is little or no discretion or flexibility in determining where each teacher fits and what his or her salary will be.

There is another classification system for "specialist positions," which is somewhat broader than the teachers' system. It has four classifications (F, G, H, and I), each of which has 10 grade steps. Many different kinds of positions are governed by this system, a few of which (27, involving about 102 employees) come within MCEA's jurisdictional domain. As with the teachers' system, the basic framework of this system, including the salaries for each classification and grade step, is the subject of collective bargaining with the various unions. The issue initially presented to the hearing examiner and the evidence presented in regard to it concerned the process of classifying new positions and reclassifying existing ones.

The County Board contended that this is an ongoing process throughout the year. Existing positions are constantly being reviewed in light of administrative changes that shift responsibilities and duties from one position to another and that therefore may warrant moving the position into a higher or lower classification. New positions are classified based on a variety of factors. Jesse Graham, director of salary administration for the County Board, described the process and the factors considered. In essence, he said that what is involved is taking individual job descriptions and grouping them into classifications based on similarities in such things as "test for selection, kinds of skills, education, abilities, knowledges and so on." The ultimate test is whether "that entire class, all the positions in that class, lend[s] itself to assignment to a particular pay grade, with equity for all the positions in that pay grade." He explained further:

"Well, we're looking, of course, [at] the content of the job. We're looking at the importance of the job, the value of that job as seen by the school system management, we're looking specifically at that number of people they supervise, the scope of their operation, the kind of control that's exercised over their operation; in other words, do they have a lot of flexibility to operate, do they have a lot of very close guidelines that govern how they operate?

The more guidelines and control they have, the tendency to have a lower class; the more policy making, management oriented, more flexibility they have in decision making, the tendency to go higher in the salary lanes."

Although the County Board informs MCEA when it is considering the reclassification of positions and accepts "input" from the union, it does not regard its decisions to be negotiable. The Board's witnesses prophesied enormous problems if negotiation was required, pointing out that, unlike contract terms, which can be bargained and agreed to in advance, classification decisions are made daily throughout the year. Mr. Cooney feared that "it would become a continual negotiations process" which, in the event of an impasse, might trigger the impasse procedure set forth in Educ. art., § 6-408(d) and create long delays. ² He was concerned as well that, if the issue were negotiable, MCEA could initiate, rather than simply react to, classifications. In sum, he said: "I just see it as a chaotic situation, it doesn't lend itself to...